50 Karuzou AUs
by MsLyoness
Summary: Karura/Zouchouten explored in numerous settings, because that pairing can be angsty, humorous, fluffy, and dramatic, not to mention incredibly fun to write. The character filter reflects the most recent installment, and unfortunately, it does not reflect the order of importance.


**Knight in Shining Armor**

_Sometimes, the princess saves the day. (Humor, T)_

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(Author's Notes: So… yeah. Challenged myself to write _short_ stories while I work on big ones, as I like to have 'em go long. Unfortunately some of these are over thirty pages, but at least I tried.

And since I've really got a problem with the way "RG Veda" ended for a host of reasons, each and every chapter here is an AU [alternate universe], although two are manga-based and technically ARs [alternate realities]. Some have Zouchouten's nameless omake cutesy wife, most don't. Some have Garuda in one form or another, some don't. Some have Karyoubinga around, others don't. Some are meant to be funny, some are meant to be sad, some are meant to be so sugary sweet your teeth will hurt. But they've all got romance in 'em, because this is the pairing I luuurve above all others.

I'm actually using this format for a number of other pairings, although those only get 35 or 15. At first I was going to post these after I posted "Fourteen People," but that one's unfortunately coming along very slowly, and I figured there was no sense hanging onto these when some are pretty far along.

Just so you know, some stories got sexy enough that I'm playing it safe and posting them on Adult Fan Fiction [period] [woven fishing tool]. Doesn't it suck how this site won't let you type email or site addresses? I mean, hello, sometimes that's part of the story, I can attest to that. Anyway, none of the adult ones have been posted yet because they're not finished, but when I do post them, I'll mention it in the author's notes here. But for now, let's see this first, merely T-rated one!)

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Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a princess. This princess was a beautiful princess, which was fitting but wasn't actually all that common. A surprising number of princesses were actually plain or downright ugly, since inbreeding tended to up the chances of bad physical traits. But _this _one's heritage had been suitably mixed, and she'd lucked out with the "nice appearance" genes. Her face was fair, her eyes were sky-blue, her skin was nice and pale (because only peasant women had tans), and her hair was white and always worn in an exotic style: a long bob paired with bangs and a high, gathered ponytail, much longer than the bob.

She was, more importantly, a very _intelligent _princess. But alas, this was a land where women who weren't villainesses didn't get to do much of anything save make babies, raise babies, take care of the house, and look pretty if applicable, so our heroine was severely underestimated. She knew she was smart, but _they _didn't.

By the time she was five, it had become apparent that she was very brainy, which had made the court mutter and her father frown. She'd kept reading big books, and suggesting new ways to govern, and generally being a little know-it-all. So the king had decided to ship her off to the Wibblesworth Estates for Noble Young Ladies, where surely she would learn her place.

And so, she'd been taken from her home and brought to a new castle… which she hated. By the time she was twenty, she had become so fed up that she wanted to burn the whole damn thing down, and why couldn't she go home yet?! The only being who understood her here was her pet phoenix, Garuda. He understood human languages, but could only speak in Phoenix. Oh well, they communicated well enough.

Things might have gone on like this indefinitely, had a dragon not taken a page out of the princess' book of violent fantasies directed at the Wibblesworth Estates, and burned the East Tower. While other people ran around screaming their fool heads off, she organized a water bucket brigade to try to fight the fires, and the guards to try to attack the dragon. Unfortunately, guards for a boarding school for noble young ladies aren't _nearly _as dangerous as guards for a warlord or king, and it didn't work so well, mostly because most of them saw the first guy get eaten and ran away. But the dragon had figured out who the real threat was, and simply carried the princess off to its lair.

It was almost a relief, really. The lair was of course dank and remote, but at least there were no more lessons on which fork to use, which she'd figured out already, thanks. And this way, someone would come to rescue her! She'd of course then have to marry him, whoever he was, but she was beginning to think at least that would be better than the Wibblesworth Estates. And when word got around to her father of what had happened, it was only a matter of time until a handsome young lord came to save her.

And this, dear readers, is where the story of Princess Karura and the fairly good-looking not-young lord really begins.

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"Squawk," Garuda said one morning, which could mean a number of things in Phoenix. If given an excited inflection, it meant, "I'm happy!" If given a solemn inflection, it meant, "My life is empty." If given a skeptical inflection, it meant, "I wasn't hatched yesterday, stop trying to fool me." If given a questioning inflection, it meant, "What's that?" And if given an exasperated inflection like it just had been, it meant, "I'm sick of eating this."

"I'm sick of eating kidnapped sheep too," Karura muttered, turning the spit. "There should be a law that dragons have to provide at least _some _variety to captured princesses. If we didn't have the gardens, and the berries from the west gate, and the mushrooms from the cellars, I'd be looking at serious heart problems."

They had been here for two long, boring months. One might think it would have been two long, terrifying months, but no. After the initial shock of being kidnapped and flown to this remote castle, Karura had realized that dragons weren't that exciting.

Because they were giant lizards. And as such, they spent a lot of time lying in the sun atop the tallest tower if they had a castle, or on a rock ledge if they didn't. This one had at least had the sense to provide a garden, but only after its last princess had keeled over from a stroke, her porky self bouncing down the stairs. And boy, she'd been skinny when she came here.

This dragon could be found doing one of two things when not sunning itself: gloating over its treasure, and going off to get sheep and more treasure. Oh, and making sure Karura didn't escape. She had to wonder why this was such a big deal to it. It didn't have her do anything, not even polish its treasure, or cook for it, or even help it keep the castle up (and the castle was deteriorating). It didn't talk, and it mostly ignored her. Until she headed towards the gates, in which case it would swoop down, grab her, and stick her in a tall tower. Luckily there were no locks on the doors, but still.

Many years later, a wizard would finally invent a spell for talking to dragons, and ask one why they kidnapped princesses and stole treasure. The answer would be this: "I like shiny things, and I kidnap princesses because it's a tradition. My mother did so, and her mother, and her mother, and her mother, and her mother…"

After enduring a full minute of "her mothers," the wizard would finally reply, "Ah, it's a _cultural _thing." Cultural things, after all, often made little sense to outsiders.

And yes, dragons were matriarchal. The females were bigger and more common, although this particular dragon that Karura was dealing with was a male. In the dragon language, his name was Crimsonfang. To an outsider's ears, his name was "GRRAAAoorragh!"

Right now, GRRAAAoorragh/Crimsonfang was, once again, sunning himself on a tower, dreaming sweet dreams of lady dragons, ones who would be _very _impressed by his treasure and his princess. They'd say to him, "GRRAAAoorragh, ROARRR _snooort_ GRRRowwl, snarl snarllll grrr hssss!" Which translated as, "Crimsonfang, your hoard is _sooo _big, and I want to have you father my eggs!" Yeah, that would be how it would go, booyah.

Below in the kitchens, the mutton was done. Karura chewed it morosely, disgusted that she'd used to look forward to having it. Not anymore, but then in fairness, if she'd been eating birthday cake for months, she'd be tired of birthday cake too. Right now, what she wanted more than anything else was bread, plain boring bread, because she wasn't getting many carbs and that was taking a toll on her. In fact, she dreamed of bread in its myriad forms, because the wild wheat she got from the garden wasn't doing it for her. Being a princess, she had no idea how one was supposed to make bread, so she just ate the things raw (after being husked of course).

She and Garuda finished their meal, and she wandered up to the ramparts to look down at the valley. It was a beautiful valley, and if only she could just get out of this castle! Heck, the dragon left the drawbridge down just to mock her unless he was away, and it taunted her with its easy road to freedom. One of these days, she was going to find a way to poison him, and –

"Squawk?!" Garuda asked excitedly, bobbing his head to the left. _What's that?!_

Karura looked, and her heart leapt with joy. Oh thank you God, all her prayers had been answered!

It was a knight! A tall and very muscular knight, covered head to toe in plate armor and a white cape, hefting a bastard sword and shield with ease. He was on foot, which made perfect sense because there was no path to the castle, just loose scree at a steep angle, littered with sharp boulders. There was no _way _you could get a horse up that.

She almost waved and called out to him, but soon quashed that idea. After all, that would just get her captor's attention. So the thing to do was casually walk down from the ramparts and get close to the gate. When the knight waltzed in, maybe all she had to do was sprint away with him. Unless, of course, her future husband was one of those morons who announced themselves to their enemies, as many knights were.

Well, at least he didn't have a troop of trumpeters, as the stories said manly heroes always did. They were probably all back down in the valley, hidden by the trees, and when he carried Karura down to his horse, they would break into joyous music. After all, every romance needed joyous music!

She walked down the stairs as calmly as she could, meandered out into the main courtyard as casually as she could, and began to inch her way towards the gate, as nonchalantly as she could. It seemed to take forever for the knight to make his appearance, but finally there he was! He walked in like he owned the place, and she couldn't help but think that uh-oh, cocky men like that tended to do stupid things.

He stuck the sword in the ground and raised a finger to his lips, or as close as he could while wearing the helmet. Ha, see, he _was _smart! She nodded frantically, then pointed up to the dragon, who was still off in la-la-land. The knight followed her gaze, nodded, beckoned her forwards, picked his sword back up, and came towards her as quietly as he could.

She tiptoed, tiptoed, tiptoed towards him, but that stupid sixth sense the dragon had proved real again. He jerked his head up with an annoyed snort (when would this girl learn to stop trying to escape?), whipped his head around, and roared in furious shock. Oh no, the mortal enemy of dragons everywhere: a knight!

"SCREEEEECH!" Garuda screamed in fear, which meant, "Oh crap, we're dead!"

Karura did the smart thing: she ran for it. After all, she had no shield and it wasn't her job to kill dragons! Her only hope lay in that little alcove over there. She really hoped the knight wasn't offended by her logical act, and indeed, she heard no upset bellows of "HEY!" or "BITCH!" At least there was that, so maybe he understood the intelligence of her actions.

She turned around as the dragon landed with a "THUD!" in the courtyard, his wings blocking her view. Well, maybe she didn't want to see the end of this, with the dragon eating the knight alive or something. It was too bad she couldn't see, because the aforementioned man was currently sheltering behind his (enchanted) shield as the dragon breathed fire, thinking to himself, _That all you got, you overgrown skink? Ha, you have to take a breath sometime!_

And indeed, "sometime" came very soon, and when it did, the knight wasted no time. He swung that massive sword back in one hand, and slammed it into the dragon's neck. The resulting roar of pain made Karura perk up, and the subsequent sounds of what sounded like an ax against a tree made her grin. Cool, he was chopping its head off! Like a lumberjack with a particularly pesky pine, the knight whacked away, and the dragon collapsed halfway through. Karura, noticing this, immediately ran out to thank her rescuer, only to realize that he was still in motion.

Geez, he just kept hacking, like it was a matter of honor that he sever that neck completely. Oh well, if he were having fun wailing on her captor's body, she certainly wasn't about to try to stop him. Really, trying to stop a large man with a sword was never a good idea, because they often got a little blood-drunk. Finally he made it all the way through, nodded in obvious satisfaction, then turned and walked over to her, the front of his armor simply _covered _in crimson.

He reached up for his helmet, and she prepared herself to see a gorgeous young stud who would say something like, "Ah, fair lady, I have come to win your hand. I am Sir (insert romantic name here), and I have traveled far with only my love for you for company. Now that I've killed the beast, come with me and we'll live happily ever after."

So when she saw a middle-aged man with very strange facial hair, she couldn't help but be disappointed, and Garuda squawked in shock. This was no gorgeous young stud! He'd probably really been something when he was younger, with piercing golden eyes, exotic blue hair, high cheekbones, and one of those cleft chins that made women swoon, but now his sideburns were ridiculous, he had lines on his face, and his eyebrows were far too bushy to be attractive. Just her luck, she got rescued by a guy who reminded her of Uncle Llewelyn.

She managed a polite, "Greetings, sir knight. Have you come to, um –"

"I'm here to rescue you," he said gallantly, and in a bass voice. "And bring you back home, because your father –"

An irate roar cut him off, and he whipped around to see the dragon get to his feet, now with _three _heads, all of which had a look in their eyes that said, "You're in trouble now, buddy." And nasty grins that showed those sharp fangs.

"It's a _hydra?!_" the knight gasped, taking a step back as the dragon flapped his wings and roared again, exceedingly pissed. "No one told me it was a hydra! Why didn't you warn me?!"

"I didn't _know _it was a hydra!" she protested, grabbing his cape and dragging him backwards with her. "I don't think anybody did! Put your helmet back on and kill it by stabbing its heart, or something! I'll lob things to distract at least one of the heads, and for God's sake, don't slice any more of them off!" she hissed, having dealt with enough knights to realize that some of them lacked common sense.

"You must think I'm a total fool," he snapped in reply, putting his helmet back on but still trotting backwards. "If I did that I'd end up with five heads or more."

The dragon flexed his wings in a show of conceited strength, because a three-headed dragon was impossible to kill! Ha, they always tried to lop a head off, and then they realized what they'd wrought. So bye-bye violent and armored little human, because this dragon was about to roast a bitch!

"Take cover!" the knight roared to Karura, shoving her away from him and hefting his shield. Unfortunately he'd put his sword down to take his helmet off and forgotten to grab it as he ran backwards, so all he could do was make a mad dash for it, and hope his shield would deflect his opponent's flame.

It did, even when he went into a roll to grab the sword, an impressive action that probably deserved some sort of award. Soon he was back on his feet, sword in hand, and the dragon snorted in contempt. So he could pull a fancy move, but he couldn't hope to – wait, he was backing towards the gate? Ha-ha, he was giving up already!

Karura was absolutely horrified when the knight backed out the drawbridge door as the dragon leisurely advanced, then turned and sprinted away. AAAAH! Now she was going to be stuck here _forever_, because he'd abandoned her. Hmph, he was more like Uncle Llewelyn than she'd thought, since Uncle Llewelyn was a total wimp who'd once ridden out a battle hiding in the cook's tent. Well, at least she wouldn't have to marry such a coward, because the dragon would get him anyway.

The dragon, as he gleefully followed the knight, was thinking along those lines too. Ha, he'd scared him away! Awesome, a three-headed dragon's might was too overwhelming for this pathetic little human, and – whoa now, what was he doing, leaping like that?

He was going into the moat, which wasn't nearly as stupid as it might seem. Due to the dragon's lack of interest in housekeeping, the moat was merely five feet of water, instead of ten feet of water. With a splash the knight was chest-deep in it, and once the dragon saw where he was, he roared in fury.

No fair! Knights weren't supposed to be smart enough to utilize their environment to their advantage! They were supposed to get on their horses and charge pell-mell ahead, or be bound by the rules of honor, which _clearly _stated that they stand and fight, not run away to a more advantageous location. Why, this guy was acting like a – like a clever rogue, except he had the armor, the big sword, and the shield. Well, the dragon would show _him_.

He breathed fire, and the knight ducked underwater. He tried it again, and same thing. Five times in a row he tried it, and the pesky tin can evaded his flame every time, curses! Well okay, if he couldn't roast the guy, he could bite his head off.

Not so easily, it seemed. The moat was too narrow for him to land in it, so he had to straddle it and snake a head down, not two because it was hard to coordinate multiple heads. And again demonstrating that he wasn't appropriately dim-witted, the knight stabbed his sword through the roof of his opponent's open mouth, into his brain. OUCH!

One head down, two to go. Karura, who had hastily run up to the lower ramparts to watch this, was pleasantly surprised to see that instead of fleeing, her would-be rescuer had taken out one of the heads, the one in the middle.

"Skraw," Garuda said approvingly, which if given such an inflection meant, "I like him."

Karura nodded in reply, then seized a loose piece of stone, which was again only possible thanks to the big reptile's bad homemaking habits. As the dead head dangled limply and got in the other two's way, she took aim at the closest living one, and chucked that rock right at her captor's eye. Ha, a direct hit!

That head swung back around with a roar, and uh-oh, she hadn't really thought out what she'd do when that happened. So she ducked as quickly as she could, narrowly avoiding the flame. Okay, not doing that again, not until there was only one head and it was focused on the knight. She knelt there with sweat on her face as the flame passed over her, and it was hot, it was hot, hot hot hot, ow!

She was unable to see this, but the knight had taken advantage of the dragon's distraction to slash at the other head, opening a major wound on the bridge of his nose. Needless to say, this got the fire-breathing head's attention too, and it darted towards its opponent from the other side, in a classic pincer movement. And in classic avoidance of that pincer movement, the knight ducked underwater again, resulting in the equally classic "enemies colliding with each other" occurrence. In fact, one head crushed the other in its jaws before the dragon realized what he was doing.

So. One draconic head, one courageous knight, and one princess cautiously popping her own head up from behind the wall. Oh good, he was still alive! Now, all he had to do was –

The dragon, having decided that the sword had to be gotten rid of, darted forward and grabbed the sword in his jaws, trying to yank it out of the knight's hand. But nope, this was a man who refused to let things go, and so he was pulled from the water and whipped all around. Annoyed, the dragon subsequently opened his mouth and let him drop onto the drawbridge, with a bone-shaking "CLANG!" that made Karura wince. Uh-oh, that had to hurt. And it sure as heck did, poor man.

But he had enough wits about him to desperately jam his shield into the dragon's mouth when he came in for a final breath of fire, thus blocking the flame. Unfortunately dragons are immune to fire, so this one suffered no internal burns, but as the knight got to his feet, the dragon suddenly realized that he couldn't open his mouth any wider to get this thing out.

With his jaws immobilized by the enchanted (and now a bit singed) shield, his only hopes of stopping his foe's stab at his breast were his claws. But too late, because the knight moved pretty darn fast for such a big guy in such heavy armor, and no sooner had the dragon started to lift a clawed hand than his heart was shish-kebabed. Oh, such pain as he had never known rushed through his system, and his last words were, "_GRAOOOWWWAUGH! _Arghh!" The translation of which was exceptionally pithy and crude, not suitable for a nice story about a princess and a knight in shining armor at all.

He had been rearing back, and now he fell backwards, as the knight yanked his sword back out with obvious approval. Karura clapped and cheered, Garuda screeched and flew somersaults in the air, and the knight performed a little bow before calling, "I think it's really dead this time!"

"It is, I know it!" Karura cried, nearly with tears. "Because I've never heard of a dragon having to be killed three times, just two!"

With that she flew down the stairs as the knight made his way back into the castle, and they met in the courtyard. He was just taking his helmet off again, and boy, he looked pretty battered. There were dents in his armor and dragon blood in the grooves, singe marks on his gauntlets, his blackened shield had a couple tooth marks in it, and his cape was ripped in numerous places. But all of that just meant that he looked more manly, Garuda thought with approval.

The manly knight started to say something, then muttered, "I should probably be on one knee, sorry Your Highness." He did just that, still dripping water, and she thought, _Here it comes, the asking for my hand and my inevitable acceptance of his suit. That's what princesses __do__ when a gallant knight saves them._

Oh well, she decided, at least he seemed kind. And he wasn't _ugly_, just older and with odd taste in facial hair. But he certainly seemed capable enough, and polite too. There were worse men she could marry, and he might just be a very good husband. Garuda seemed to like him, and Garuda hated mean people.

So she held out her hand for him to kiss, and intoned, "My thanks for your slaying of the dragon, sir knight. As is customary, you have won the rights to my hand and my heart, and –"

"Oh no, Princess Karura," he hastened to assure her with a quick shake of his head. "I didn't do it to win your hand! Your father sent me. I'm Sir Zouchouten of Southland, and you've certainly grown up nicely. The last time I saw you, you were a little girl," he said cheerfully, holding a hand about three feet off the ground to indicate her height.

"Oh," she said, surprised, then smiled and continued, "Well, you have my heartfelt thanks, Sir Zouchouten. Is my father well?"

"He's in perfect health," he replied with a smile of his own. "But he's decided that it's time for you to be married, in case something happens to him. So he can have a future king in the wings, you know how it is. He's picked someone out for you, someone very… wealthy and powerful," he said rather carefully.

Karura wanted to ask, "Who is that? Is he kind? Is he intelligent? Do I know him, or is he a handsome newcomer who was cast out by an evil uncle, and has to do a brave deed for the king of another country before he can get his inheritance back?" But Zouchouten got to his feet with a rather nervous look on his face, stripping off his mailed gloves and letting them drop to the ground.

"Help me get this armor off, won't you?" he asked rather desperately, already unbuckling the chestplate. "If I don't get it dry in time, it'll rust and I'll be completely useless to you."

Karura's eyes bugged out at that. Get his _armor _off?! That wasn't proper in the least! What would her future husband and her father say?

"Believe me, I have no designs on your virtue," he assured her solemnly. "And I'm wearing clothes under this, the chafing would be unbearable if I wasn't. But if I don't get out of this, it _will _rust and eventually immobilize me. Now, I assume you have some sort of drying cloth around, and once it's all been cared for, I give you my word that I'll put it all on again."

She studied him, and she realized that he had a point. Wet metal was never a good idea, and she decided that if he'd lied and so much as laid a possessive hand on her, Garuda would attack. So she led him to the treasure room that also included fine cloth, and there proceeded to take off that armor, and hand him some chamois for polishing it. In fact, she helped too, and as they made stilted small talk about her life prior to her kidnapping, they buffed the armor until it was gleaming and dry.

Once it was all back on, he apologetically asked, "I don't suppose you might, well, have any food around? Fighting a dragon makes a man hungry. And it'll be a long walk back to my horse."

Karura, who had left a lot of the mutton for later, was all too happy to reply, "Why _yes_, we have lots of food here. Just follow me!" she said over her shoulder, leading him down to the kitchens.

"Hey, mutton," he said happily once he saw it, obviously fond of the horrid stuff. "I love mutton."

"Have as much as you want," she told him fervently, handing him a big piece. "I'm sick to death of it."

And so Zouchouten polished off the mutton with much more enjoyment than Karura would've had, and was nice enough to offer a scrap to Garuda. The phoenix looked down his beak at it, and grumbled, "Raaawk." Which, translated, was, "Get that stuff away from me, it makes me sick."

"He says no thank you," Karura lied, and Garuda nodded his head. Zouchouten shrugged, than ate the scrap of mutton too. No sense letting such delicious food go to waste!

And then… it was back to the treasury. Zouchouten seemed quite pleased with this hoard that was now his, and walked around it, picking up riches and admiring them. Then he sighed, surveyed the room as a whole, and said almost mournfully, "I won't be able to bring even a sixteenth of this back with me."

Karura was about to ask why he didn't just call his retinue, when he grumbled, "If only my retinue hadn't all gotten killed by that sorceress. I had them bring extra bags for the treasure. Well, I guess we'll just have to take the finest gems and jewelry, and I'll stick my banner atop the gate to claim this castle. It won't keep the petty thieves away," he sighed before she could say it, "but it should deter the noble looters."

"And there's so much, when you come back surely there'll be a lot left," she agreed.

And so they spent a full hour going through the hoard, and inevitably missed some of the nicest jewels because they were buried under others. But they found some gorgeous loose stones, thick necklaces, beautiful bracelets, and fabulous rings, thirty of which Karura loaded onto her hands (three on each finger) because it made sense to do so. Zouchouten picked a couple rings up too, adorned himself with a fine man's necklace, bundled the rest into a makeshift sack, hefted it over his shoulder, and reluctantly sighed, "We really should be going."

Karura and Garuda, decked out in bling, were more than happy to leave. She strolled across the drawbridge, looked over at the dragon's carcass, and smugly thought, _If you'd just let me leave earlier, you wouldn't be dead now._

It wasn't a terribly long walk to the horse, and Zouchouten filled it by telling Karura some of the court gossip, hardly any of which was very interesting to her but she'd have to know it. She really didn't _care _that Lady Tamara of Westland kept stalking Sir Tenou of Thunderstorm, or that Sir Bishamonten of Northland fought a duel with a knight from another kingdom over an insult to his hairstyle, and won very handily. She did care that Lady Ryuu of Waterdragon beat a would-be bandit up, though, because she liked to hear about strong women.

Finally they reached the treeline, and very soon after that, they reached Zouchouten's horse, tied to a tree. The stallion had been grazing, but he was happily looking at his owner now and snorting in excitement. Oh good, he hated being tied in one place, and there was a bunch of grass that looked ever so tasty right out of his reach.

"This is Bruiser," Zouchouten said proudly, and the horse tossed his head and whinnied at his master's tone. Awright, Master was praising him!

"He's… huge," Karura said in a rather stunned tone.

He was. He looked almost like a draft horse, with a mane that defied gravity and thus reminded her of Zouchouten's hair. He was gold with the same color mane and tail, and if he stepped on your foot it would be pulverized beyond repair. His riding blanket was green with his master's eagle crest, his reins were trimmed with brass, and the entire effect was that of a walking siege tower, complete with a spike on his forehead.

"He has to be huge," Zouchouten said simply. "I'm big to begin with, and add all the armor and the sword, and a regular horse would collapse under the weight. But Bruiser's been specially bred, and he'll be able to carry all that and you too."

Karura approached him with a bit of awe, and Bruiser turned his head to look at her better. Ah, so this was why Master had left! Good, good, another human to feed him treats and groom him. He wasn't worried about carrying her at all, as she was so small. But that bird on her shoulder, was it an enemy or a friend? He whickered softly at Garuda, asking in Horse, "What's your angle, birdie?"

Garuda took flight from Karura's shoulder and gently settled onto Bruiser's withers, emitting a soft and matter-of-fact squawk of "Craaaah." Which, in Phoenix, was, "I'm her friend, horse. I have no quarrel with you."

Bruiser snorted in contented agreement, and Garuda flapped back to Karura as Zouchouten smiled, "There, all settled between the animals. Well, Princess, let's get back to the castle with that banner, and then we can get going, since we have lots of ground to cover before nightfall. He's got a banner in his saddlebag, so we'll just leave the treasure with him when we go back. He'll protect it well, rest assured."

And so they trekked back, ran Zouchouten's banner up the flagpole, collected a couple more pieces of jewelry, and made it back down to Bruiser in very little time indeed. And then, with little or no ceremony, Zouchouten hefted her onto the horse, mounted up himself, and off they went, back home. Karura couldn't help but feel a little relieved at this, actually, because there had been far too much ceremony at the Wibblesworth Estates. And there would be excess ceremony when she went back to the palace, so a more laid-back journey could only be a good thing.

"So, Sir Zouchouten," she began politely, "have you any children?"

"Nope. I mean, no Your Highness, I'm not even married," he cheerfully replied, thus making her become most suspicious indeed.

A man that old, not married? Who had no designs on her virtue? Ah, he was obviously one of… _those_. You know, the ones who were really interested in tight hose and lithe young servant boys, and his squire's duties had probably also included warming his bedroll. The squire was dead like the rest of Zouchouten's party, but Karura would have bet anything he could've told some horror stories.

And then, to her surprise:

"I know it's odd, and before you ask, no I'm not a homosexual," Zouchouten sighed, sounding very resigned and like he'd had to answer that question numerous times before. "You see, back in my youth, I _was _engaged to the single most adorable woman in the history of the world. But she fell ill and died, and I vowed I would never marry another. You know how it is, you start out doing something and get set in your ways."

Oh, that was so _sweet! _Aww, was there nothing as stupidly romantic as refusing to move on and find the happiness that your lover probably would've wanted you to have? Karura didn't think there was, although she did acknowledge the stupidity of such an action. Well, at least she knew her virtue was safe with him.

"Speaking of marriages," she said in as casual a voice as she could, "who am I to marry?"

"You'll be marrying Lord Bentley Blithering, Your Highness," he replied, and she couldn't see it, but he had frowned at that name. Garuda, who had been turning his head back, noted this and took it as the bad sign it was.

"Is Lord Blithering a kind man?" Karura asked hopefully. "Is he young and handsome? Will he let me do things I enjoy instead of chaining me to a spinning wheel and a nursery?"

"Um… well, no," Zouchouten admitted, sounding a bit sheepish. "He's what you might call a horse's – I mean, no he's not handsome and he's my age, and he's obese and thinks women are all idiots, but he's a, er, very wealthy lord, which is why your father agreed to –"

"He wants me to marry a horrible, misogynistic fat man?!" she screeched, and Garuda imitated her. "And he couldn't even send that potential suitor to fight the dragon himself?! He would've been killed, and eventually a handsome young lord would have come to rescue me," she concluded, glaring at the back of Bruiser's head.

"We're running a bit short of handsome young lords right now," Zouchouten replied ruefully. "Sir Vahyu of Windswept got killed jousting, Sir Varuna of Bluewater was eaten by an ogre, Sir Yasha of Borealis ran off with Sir Kujaku of Blackfeather, Sir Rasetsu of Borealis fell off a rampart and is now paralyzed, Sir Tenou of Thunderstorm is off on a quest, Sir Seiryuu of Waterdragon was injured fighting an evil wizard, his brother Sir Hakuryuu currently has a nasty fever, and their cousin Nahga is still a squire.

"So that's why your father sent me. He just figured, well, it's a collection job anyway, you won't have to marry _me_. And he wanted to make sure you got home safely, because there are many perils on the road. Just be glad he didn't send Sir Koumokuten of Westland, because if he wasn't fast enough to explain that you wouldn't have to marry him, you might've thrown yourself onto a sword at the sight of him. Poor man gets mistaken for a tall goblin all the time," he sighed in a pitying tone.

"Is he fat?" Karura snapped, and at Zouchouten's cautious answer of "No," she snarled, "Then he sounds better than Lord Blithering!"

Zouchouten said nothing for a while, obviously trying to think of a way to cheer her up, and finally he sighed, "I really am sorry, Princess Karura. Please don't resent me for doing my job, okay? I promise you, it won't be so bad, and we've got a while until we get back, so don't let it poison our relationship. We seemed to be getting along pretty well."

"I suppose I shouldn't blame _you_," she sighed, but couldn't stop a disgusted, "I will be praying that this journey home hits some unexpected snags, though."

.

Three hours later, they stopped for supper. Karura had by then worked through her resentment of Zouchouten, because after all, it hadn't been _his _idea that she marry Lord Blithering, and he had of course saved her from the dragon. As he laid a blanket on the ground, she couldn't help but think that he was a very good warrior, having killed the dragon twice and survived a sorceress when everybody else hadn't. She was about to ask him what that battle had been like, when he pulled out something nearly divine from the supply bag.

_Bread! _Delicious, nutritious whole-wheat bread, and her mouth watered as she looked at it. She wanted, more than anything in the world, to snatch it and wolf it down, but that would be exceedingly rude. So, with a supreme effort of will, she held herself back from being rude, and waited until Zouchouten had gotten everything else out. Ah, here came the prayer, good.

"Well, go ahead," Zouchouten smiled, breaking the bread in half and handing some to her. "You must be hungry."

"What about the prayer?" she asked, a little scandalized. At the Wibblesworth Estates, you practically had to give thanks before you drank some water. It had annoyed her actually, but she was used to it by now.

He looked embarrassed, and hastily folded his hands with a mumble of "We thank thee, Lord. Amen. Okay," he grinned, snagging himself some jerky, "now we can eat."

"Are you not a religious man?" Karura had to ask, after she'd devoured some wonderful, wonderful bread. "I mean, back at the Wibblesworth Estates, everyone was very religious, and if they weren't they got that beaten out of them pretty quickly. I guess I got accustomed to it, even though I honestly have to tell you that I found it excessive."

"Religion is not my friend," he said bluntly, then hastily amended, "Not that there's anything wrong with it. It's just, you know, your fiancée dies from a flesh-eating plague, and the priests tell you it was God's will that she suffered horribly and 'everything happens for a reason.' Surely you can see why a man who already preferred the physical world would get a little sour on Christianity."

Karura, who had never before encountered anyone who thought for themselves like that, stared at him in awe. But wasn't he worried about burning in Hell for his non-belief? Then again, if you didn't believe in it, you weren't scared of it.

So she said solemnly, "Well, you're a brave man to risk Hell. But I already knew you were brave. Listen, thank you. I mean, I don't know if another knight would've been able to kill a three-headed dragon, or even kill it the first time, if I'm being totally honest. Because I've seen some pretty stupid knights," she said in a rush, hoping he wouldn't get mad.

Nope, he sent her a grin and agreed, "Oh, so have I. To return the favor, I don't know if any other princesses would've been throwing rocks at the dragon like that. That was very courageous. Speaking of princesses, your little sister says hello," he said easily, turning her reply from a complaint about the other young women at the Wibblesworth Estates to curiosity about her sister.

"What's young Karyoubinga like? I've never actually had the chance to meet her," she said, a bit testily because she'd always wanted to see her younger sibling. She'd been informed that she had one by letter, and that had pretty much been it.

Zouchouten grinned again and told her, "You're going to love her. She's the single sweetest child I've ever met, even though her health is bad, something with her lungs. But she sings all the time, beautiful songs the court loves to hear, and she was so excited that you'd be coming back. She told me," he attempted a little girl's voice to disastrous effect, " 'Sir Zouchouten, tell her I love her and I wrote a song I'm going to sing her when she gets here!' She's a doll, you have no idea," he finished in a normal voice.

Karura couldn't stop smiling, eager to hear that song. She asked him avidly, "What does she look like?"

"She looks an awful lot like you, just with a rounder face and bigger eyes. She's got the same coloring, except her hair has a metallic shine like your mother's. And she's always carrying her pet nightingale around, just like you've always got Garuda," he revealed, nodding at the phoenix, who puffed himself up with pride.

Karura turned her head to look at her bird, and firmly told him, "Garuda, you will _not _eat that nightingale. He likes to get smaller birds sometimes," she said acidly, making him hiss in annoyance that she was condemning his awesome hunting prowess.

Zouchouten seemed amused by this, and drawled, "Well, they're probably phenomenal entertainment, right Garuda? Those little guys go so fast and are so darn hard to get. I feel like that with fleet-footed common soldiers," he told her matter-of-factly, "the kind who wear leather armor and thus can move much faster than I can."

Garuda nodded his head, pleased that Zouchouten understood, and seriously told him, "Hraak."

Karura translated, "He says, 'You are so right. They're much more fun that rats or rabbits.' You know, he once even got a hummingbird, which made me very upset. I wish he'd just stick to rodents, lagomorphs, insects, arachnids, and the occasional reptile, not other birds," she muttered, shooting her phoenix a glare that he ignored.

From there the humans got to know each other better, in between eating and drinking. Karura learned that Zouchouten was the oldest of four siblings, and the other three had not survived past childhood. Zouchouten learned that Karura had wanted to throw her fancy sewing samplers down the privy, because stitching them was so nauseatingly boring. And so on and so forth, and by the time they were back on the horse, she thought to herself, _Wow, I have a __human__ male friend now._

"We'll ride for maybe two more hours," her human male friend told her, "before we make camp. We only have the one bedroll, but before you get all apprehensive, I can just use my cape. I'm used to sleeping on hard ground," he informed her, something that impressed her an awful lot.

Princesses were practically _required _to be picky sleepers, and while Karura could hopefully handle a bedroll, she vividly recalled Princess Priscilla. Priscilla had gone on and on about a pea she'd felt under her _multiple _mattresses, which Lady Lorinda had vindictively placed there (Lorinda and Priscilla were mortal enemies). Karura fervently hoped that there would be no small, pea-like stones under her bedroll, or she'd think of herself as in the same category as that whiner.

But when it came time to bed down after taking Zouchouten's armor off again, Karura was startled to see that, while it wasn't _comfy_, it wasn't so bad. She looked back up at him and ventured, "Are you going to keep watch, or are Garuda and Bruiser enough?"

"Well, that depends. Is Garuda a light sleeper?" he asked seriously. "I mean, if he wakes up easily and makes lots of noise, I can get more sleep. If not –"

Garuda emitted a cheerful whistling noise, which Karura interpreted as, "Yes, he's a very light sleeper. He says he'll make sure to be extra vigilant tonight, and brags that phoenixes can sleep with one eye open."

"Fantastic," Zouchouten grinned, joining her on the ground (just many feet away, for propriety's sake). "Now, I'll have to wake you pretty early in the morning, but I'm sure you'll sleep like a log after today," he yawned, wrapping himself up in his cape. He looked like some sort of man-burrito, Karura's tired mind giggled.

And he was right: she did sleep like a log, even on the hard ground. She had a dream about Karyoubinga (who looked just like Karura had when she'd been younger, in her mind). She had a dream about all the treasure in the saddlebags being lost in a river. She had a dream about Bruisers as far as the eye could see. She also had a dream about Zouchouten rescuing her wearing nothing at all, but by the time she woke up, she only remembered the Karyou dream. Such was life.

.

The day wore on, and Karura couldn't help but feel that Zouchouten was a bit too cheerful. He hummed little tunes, he cracked jokes, he told humorous stories, and he carried on an interpreted conversation with Garuda on "Magical Creatures I Have Known (and Killed)." Well, it made sense, didn't it? _He _wasn't marching towards a marriage with an obese misogynist.

She sighed at that thought, and he immediately turned concerned as he asked, "What's wrong, Princess Karura?"

"Oh, just call me 'Karura,' I'm getting sick of being called 'Princess Karura.' It's just… it's unfair," she burst out, still staring straight ahead but her words carried back to him. "Why don't I get _any _say in the man _I _have to marry? My father won't have to deal with Lord Blithering being awful to me day in, day out, or forcibly stop himself from retching on my wedding night, or refrain from smacking his brats across the face when I have children."

"It is unfair," Zouchouten agreed, patting her shoulder gently. "And you know I'm sorry. Personally, if I had my way, you could choose any man you wanted to marry, even if he was a peasant."

"Really?" she asked desperately, turning in the saddle to face him. "You honestly mean that?"

"I do," he told her with a smile. "I feel incredibly sorry for you, actually. But I promise you, if it gets to be too much with Blithering, come find me and we'll have some heart-to-hearts. You're strong, and you'll pull through, I know you will. A princess who can help fight a dragon can handle a bad husband. I mean, my mother did, even though she wasn't a princess."

Karura wasn't so surprised by this, because an awful lot of noblewomen had bad husbands. So she ventured, "What tricks did she use?"

"Well, she focused on my siblings and me. She focused on keeping the manor running, and she made sure that she had some places she could be alone. I mean, men don't usually sit in on sewing or spinning, so that room was her haven. Oh, and she pushed my father down a flight of stairs one day, but no one can prove that," Zouchouten almost smirked; clearly he hadn't been very fond of his father.

Karura wasn't very reassured. She was one of those women who would hate the child if she hated the father (for very good reasons; she wouldn't have _chosen _to get pregnant from him), and she couldn't push the future king down a flight of stairs. Well, maybe years in the future, if she gathered enough power she could mount a coup, and hand the kingdom off to her lover. Surely it wouldn't be _too _difficult to find a man she actually wanted who was kind and attractive, and heck, maybe Zouchouten could even be –

Her eyes went wide and she sucked in a breath at that thought, startled by it. _Zouchouten?! _The guy who was many years older and had really silly sideburns?

…Well, yeah. Her kind _friend_ who had protected her, and was good-looking in his own way, and was certainly nice and muscular instead of consisting of rolls of fat, who was smart and chivalrous and even liked Garuda. When she put it like that, it was perfectly logical. And he really was sweet, and he seemed to like her an awful lot, so maybe she could be forgiven this attraction.

She became suddenly hyper-aware of every part of her that was against him, from her back at his chest to his arms touching hers as he held the reins. Why was this? She'd been riding like this for many hours, so why did it suddenly feel different?

_Maybe I'm sick, _she thought a bit hysterically. _Maybe I'm running a fever and thus on edge, because does an acknowledgment of an attraction really affect people this way? I mean, just a few minutes ago it was all fine. And then that thought popped into my head and now won't get out, so does that honestly mean that all our upcoming interactions are going to be tainted with affection?_

She realized how stupid that phrase was, "tainted with affection." "Tainted" had the distinct connotation of something bad infecting something good, and affection wasn't a bad thing. Well, okay, it could be if you had no chance of getting the one you wanted, as was the case here for numerous reasons.

Reason number one: duty. Despite how much she hated Lord Blithering already, Karura was prepared to marry him, for her father's sake and the sake of the kingdom of Skycastle. If she rebelled and told her father she wasn't going to obey him, there would be a massive scandal, and his enemies would crow that he couldn't even control his own daughter. Which might or might not lead to war, but it would certainly lead to wagging tongues and jokes at his expense.

Reason number two: Zouchouten had already proclaimed that he would never marry another woman after his adorable fiancée had died. If he'd stuck to that vow for so long, he could stick to it some more. And how did she know he'd even consider marrying her? Which brought her to…

Reason number three: he might not be attracted to her at all. He'd kept his interactions as chaste and polite as was possible, and that was hard when it was a man and a woman all alone. Yes she was a princess and he was a loyal knight, but everybody knew of loyal knights who'd seduced a princess, which rarely ended well. And it was fully possible that he only wanted this platonic friendship, and if she tried to make a move on him, he might be startled and even fearful.

There were a couple of things Karura wasn't taking into account with all of those reasons. First off, her father had settled on Blithering as his future son-in-law with some deep misgivings. Second off, twenty years was an awfully long time for a man to be lonely (well, minus the occasional buxom serving maid for the night, but Karura had no idea about those).

And third off… it's a sad fact of life that, while a male/female friendship may be completely platonic on the female end, it never is for the (straight) male. Men get certain ideas, and while they may chastise themselves for and never dream of acting on them, if the woman in question is attractive, there are going to be, at minimum, random sexual thoughts. For example, _Bend over some more so I can see your boobs! _or, _Whoa, you brushed against my thigh. Do it again!_

In fact, right now, Zouchouten was thinking, _Your hair's so __pretty__. I bet it's really soft. I want to __touch__ it. _Which was followed by a blink, and an immediate mental chastising of, _No no, that was bad. I want to get you home, that's all I want to do. I swear._

Ignorant of this, Karura broke the silence with the steady question, "How long do you think it'll be until we get home?"

"Two weeks, give or take a couple days," Zouchouten matter-of-factly replied. "We're not even in Skycastle yet, we're still in Gandaraja. We should reach the border in six days, if all goes well. From there, a mere eight days of riding will take us to the palace, and we'll be able to sleep in actual inns as soon as we cross the border."

A thought burst unbidden into Karura's mind: _Will we be sharing a room? _She shook it off and replied, "Oh, that will be lovely. I get uncomfortable sleeping outside, you know, since I always think wolves or something are going to attack me."

"I'll protect you from any wolves," he vowed, patting her shoulder. "And really, it's summer, and wolves have lots of animal prey in the summer. They're much more apt to attack humans during the late winter, when they're starving and having trouble bringing a deer or elk down. Which isn't to say a _rabid _wolf wouldn't attack us, but don't worry, I'd kill it before it harmed us."

Wow, that was very macho and rugged. Karura admitted to herself that she'd always found macho and rugged to be better than passive and foppish, in moderation of course. If the man in question crossed the line to brutish, then it was no longer attractive and was in fact scary, but despite his happy chopping of the dragon's neck, Zouchouten didn't seem to be a brute. After all, he liked Karyoubinga and he was so polite to Karura. So he really was the perfect combination of manly and cultured.

_Ignore this perfection, _she firmly told herself. _It can only lead to trouble._

…_But hang it all, my life will be awful once we get back, so can't I just take advantage of this time with him? Can't I pretend it's okay to be interested? Pretty please? _her more emotional side pleaded, and rationality sighed and replied, _Fine. You can fantasize and look, but you can't touch. In a romantic way, I mean._

.

So for five days, Princess Karura fantasized about and looked at Sir Zouchouten of Southland, and only touched him when it was necessary. But it got harder and harder! The attraction grew, the friendship grew, and the sexual tension grew, and Garuda had picked up on this, as had Bruiser. But there was something else that had grown, and that was the smell of unwashed human. Neither had a change of clothes and it was summer, so needless to say, this was not very attractive and was in fact embarrassing for both parties.

It was so embarrassing, actually, that when they came upon a wooded river, Zouchouten pulled Bruiser to a stop and said firmly, "Okay, we're going to bathe. We can't do anything about the clothes, but a bath will make it _somewhat _better."

Karura barely heard him, as her mind was occupied with a blinding vision: the two of them, waist-deep in the river and fully nude, embracing as Garuda whistled a happy tune and Bruiser watched avidly. But no no no, that was a foolish and very inappropriate vision! She was annoyed to see that her formerly fairly dormant libido had kicked into high gear around Zouchouten, and it was almost maddening. It was embarrassing too, but she successfully fought down a flush as she asked, "Will you go first, or will I?"

"You go first," he said gallantly as he dismounted the horse. "It would be terribly unchivalrous of me to make you wait to get clean."

"What will we use for towels?" she had to ask as he lifted her down. "The picnic blanket? Your cape? Nothing, and we'll just be wet until the sun dries us?" she muttered, hoping that the latter wouldn't be the case.

It was decided that, dirty as the picnic blanket and cape were, those were their best bets. So Karura, armed with the blanket and the jeweled comb she'd been using all along (thankfully she'd thought to bring that from the hoard), walked down to the river with Garuda on her shoulder, steadfastly trying not to think of how easy it would be to turn around and flirtatiously ask, "Won't you join me?" That had "trouble" written all over it, she firmly reminded herself. It also had "fun." "romance," and "sexy" written all over it, but she was trying hard to ignore those.

As she unlaced her bodice, she grumbled to her phoenix, "I will be _so _glad when we're back in civilization, and I can have a nice hot bath, and fluffy bath towels, and crisp clean clothes, and even maidservants to help me in and out of my dress. Why do they make these things so complicated?" she growled, having trouble with the laces.

"Chirrrup!" _He could help you!_

"Wrong," she snapped, making Garuda frown a bit (or as much as a bird could frown). "I am _not _going to ask him to help me take my dress off, that's all kinds of inappropriate. I'll just struggle through by myself, this isn't trebuchet science. And see, I've almost got it," she said smugly.

"Krikkah," Garuda sullenly mumbled, which signified, "Touché."

After Karura had fully stripped, she neatly folded her clothes on the riverbank, and walked shoulder-deep into the water with a happy sigh. Now, some actual soap would've made her even happier, but at least water and friction were better than nothing. She ducked underwater and combed her fingers through her hair, scrubbed her body as best she could, and felt ever so much better. But boy, once she got a real bath, she vowed to linger in it for as long as possible, both because she'd need it and because it would feel so heavenly.

She stayed in the river longer than she needed too, but finally the guilt over denying Zouchouten his bath got to be too much, and she trudged out of the water with a sigh. Drying off with a slight frown of distaste on her face, she once again sent a little prayer up to God that they'd happen across a merchant with a wagon full of fluffy towels. Then the next time they bathed, they would have a nice clean method of drying off, instead of a picnic blanket and a dusty cape. Poor man, at least the picnic blanket didn't smell _quite _as strongly of horse.

She put her clothes back on, laced the bodice up with a little trouble, and strolled back over to where Zouchouten and Bruiser waited, behind a patch of trees. As she walked she was combing her hair, and Garuda thought to himself, _Ask him to help you with it, best friend. He'll be more than happy to, I __know__ it._

"All clean?" Zouchouten asked with a grin as she came into his line of sight. "Do you feel at least a _little _better?"

"Yes." She thought about offering him the picnic blanket too, but remembered what, exactly, that picnic blanket had touched on her. So instead she sighed, "Zouchouten, when we get back to the palace, remind me to send you some bath oils and the cleanest, fluffiest, comfiest towels I can find, all right?"

"Yay. I will most _certainly _remind you of that offer," he said as he began unbuckling his chestplate. "Would you help me, please?"

As she did, Karura's naughty little thoughts ran amok. Thoughts like, _How easy would it be to just untie the ties on the quilted under-armor too? _and, _If I move my hand down just six inches, I'll be exploring uncharted masculine territory, _and even, _Bugger the bloody bath. Bring me into your bronzed arms, you babe-like buff barbarian, and bear me to the bracken for some brilliantly beautiful boinkage. …Wow, all those alliteration poetry assignments paid off, I can't believe it._

Then hormones were beaten back by a sense of propriety and duty, and she steadfastly prayed, _Our Father who art in Heaven, forgive me my sinful thoughts. Grant me the moral strength to never think such awful things again, and to stop having naughty dreams. I give you my solemn word that once we're back home I'll do so much penance you won't believe it, after I go to confession and get all this off my chest. I'll even beat my head against a wall if those thoughts come back again._

_No I won't, _her rebellious side growled, as she removed the last piece of armor from Zouchouten's forearm. _If Lord Blithering weren't around and Zouchouten had rescued me anyway, this would be perfectly acceptable because I'd be marrying __him__! I can think what I want. I can have as many naughty dreams as I'd like to, and enjoy them immensely, so there._

Oblivious to the struggle of Good Girl Karura versus Liberated Karura, Zouchouten sent her another smile and said over his shoulder, "Now, if anything threatens you in the slightest way, just yell. I'm bringing my sword just in case."

"All right."

She watched him go until he was hidden by the trees, then turned around with a sigh and moodily kicked at the dust. This would be _so _much easier if his retinue had survived Zalrissa, Mistress of Stinging Winds, and they were all here to play chaperone. As it was, Zouchouten had sent Zalrissa off to the afterlife only after she'd killed everybody else, and had to leave the bodies in her cave because there was just _no way _he could bury them all before the smell became unbearable. Not to mention he'd been hurrying to save the princess, but while he'd eulogized each and every one of them to Bruiser and the surroundings, he'd felt pretty bad about just leaving them like that. Then again, they were dead, they didn't care.

Karura whiled away some time combing her hair and putting it back into its customary style, then found herself at a loss as to what to do. Suddenly she heard a cheerful little ditty from the direction of the river, accompanied every so often by the sound of splashing. Needless to say, her mind wandered over there and wouldn't go away, and all she really wanted right then was to tiptoe over and see what she could see.

"It would be most unladylike to go look," she muttered steadfastly.

"Tch," Garuda replied scornfully, which meant, "Yeah, so?"

"I mean, I would hate it if someone peeked in on me while I was bathing, and he didn't do anything like that. I should follow his chivalrous example and stay here," she told herself firmly.

"Tch."

"Well, come on now, how inappropriate would that be?! What if he catches sight of me? What if it gives him the wrong idea, and I'll have to loudly protest that I wasn't trying to seduce him? And while I'm sure he'll refrain from any ungentlemanly actions, he'll always be suspicious that I'm, well, interested in him," she desperately snapped at Garuda.

"Hsssa," he said loftily, which translated as, "He looked really good wet last time, I'll bet he looks even better now."

"I'm sure he does," she snarled, sticking a finger in his face. "But it doesn't matter how good he looks when wet, with droplets clinging to glorious muscles and –"

She became aware then that she had not only stood up but taken a few unconscious steps towards the river, and hastily spun around with a stubborn, "Right, stop that. Garuda, stop trying to be the demon on my shoulder and instead go find yourself a mouse to eat or something. I'm going to stay here and recite every word of Frederic the Frightfully Boring's 'Ode to a Cloud,' so there."

"Skrawk," he contemptuously told her, and took wing as she yelled after him, "I am _not _so sexually frustrated that I'm going to snap!"

Down in the river, Zouchouten jerked his head around in the direction that call had come from, a look of pitiable hope on his face. Then he shook that head and muttered to himself, "Auditory hallucinations already, oh dear. I've got to complete this job, or I'll go insane."

When he'd come back and Karura had helped him put the armor back on, flushing a bit out of his line of sight, he told her, "Well, I feel a little better now. I still can't wait until we can change our clothes, though."

As Karura assented and they mounted back up, Garuda muttered to Bruiser, "Shreekaw." _She's going to break, it's only a matter of time._

"Hrrrhhhaah," Bruiser agreed as he began to walk. _Good, because this tension is getting annoying._

Bruiser thought Master should just mate with the pretty filly, already. Horses had no concept of duty or romance or even a female's right to say no, not that any of Bruiser's mares had tried to fight him off. Nope, he was a stud, and the mares couldn't get enough of him, yay. He briefly recalled the gorgeous black Arabian with much enjoyment, then returned his equine musings to Master and the human mare.

Master was quite taken with her, it was _sooo _obvious! After all, he was letting her on Bruiser, and he was usually pretty defensive of his horse. Heck, he wouldn't even let the ladies of the court pat his nose, but maybe that was for the way Bruiser had bitten Lady Shashi of Thunderstorm (he knew something dangerous when he encountered it). Plus, Master kept using a calm and friendly tone, when usually he barked orders at his retinue. Also, he kept watching her when he was supposed to be keeping watch for enemies. And then there was the biggest clue: that monologue to his horse when Karura had been bathing.

It had gone like this:

"Well boy, we're just going to stay here all by ourselves, just the guys. Well, minus Garuda. We're going to talk about manly things, like ale and grilled meat and battles. We're _not _going to think about her taking her clothes off by the river, because that's really, _really _bad to think about.

"So. The dragon battle was great, a personal best. And she helped, you know. She threw a rock at it, which I was impressed by. It's a true shame she'll have to marry that blimp of a dunce Blithering, who I really want to throw down a well, because –"

He'd shaken his head vehemently then, and growled, "Well, doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter that I probably won't see her very often, as she'll be busy with her wedding and then her eventual kids –"

He'd made a choked noise then, his face going purple, and muttered, "Aw hell, I didn't want to think what I just thought. UGH. Poor, poor, poor woman."

Bruiser had just looked at him with an implacable eye, and Master had gritted his teeth and growled, "There's nothing I can do. I _want _to get us 'lost' and never go back to the palace, but they'll send search parties and she probably wouldn't like doing that with me any better. I mean, damn, _I'd _sure like it better, but… dammit."

He'd clapped his hands to his face, winced when the metal hurt him, and hissed, "Fuck. Shit. Damn. Hell. And a barrel of monkeys. This isn't what I'd expected to happen at all. How was I supposed to know how downright _perfect_ she'd be?!"

Bruiser had snorted, and Master had sighed and patted his neck, muttering, "Aw, you have no idea what I'm saying, do you boy. I've got to think of something else, like… aha! I'll remember every overwrought note of Lady Tamara's 'Sing to the Hills and the Trees and the Rivers and the Bunny Rabbits,' that'll take my mind off romantic woes for sure."

And that had been that. Bruiser, as he plodded along, now thought that maybe Master should sing to Karura. He had a decent enough voice, and if he weren't going to chase her down and get all stallion on her, maybe singing would do the trick. Or grooming, grooming worked too! He could comb her hair with his teeth and scratch any itches she had, because surely human grooming was just like horse grooming.

"We're coming up on the famous Tenkai Bridge," Zouchouten abruptly told his beloved, mostly to chase away thoughts somewhat along Bruiser's lines. "It's a modern marvel of engineering, and it spans a chasm a thousand feet deep. The bridge itself is almost half a mile long, and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else. Once we cross that, Skycastle is two mere hours away."

"Good thing too," Karura sighed as Garuda nodded in agreement. "We're starting to run a bit low on food."

Yes indeed, they were. They'd been trekking through mountains, hills, and valleys, and while there had been some berries along the way, orchards and gardens were nonexistent and they could just forget about finding a nice plump chicken. But once they made it to that inn, there would be dinner and extra food just waiting to be purchased. There would also be the much longed for baths and towels, and actual beds too. And probably even clothes to be bought if they asked nicely enough, and waved the dragon's treasure around.

They rounded the bend that would bring them to the Tenkai Bridge, and yes, that was one deep chasm. The view was beautiful, but both humans gasped in horror and the phoenix squawked, and even the horse snorted in surprise. Uh…oh. The bridge was out, dangling off the posts on both sides and missing a large section of the middle, like something huge had crashed down into it.

Unbeknownst to them, that was exactly what had happened: the errant Sirs Kujaku and Yasha had been fighting a fire sorceress mounted on a dragon, and Sir Kujaku had ended the fight by hurling his sword at the thing's heart as it was going into a dive. It had been a direct hit, and the dragon and its rider had plunged through the bridge and down into the rapids far below, as she'd screamed, "Curse you, you sexy bastaaard!" Luckily the knights had been on the side of the bridge they'd wanted to be on (the opposite side from Karura and Zouchouten), and they were even now celebrating their victory in a comfy patch of heather.

But Zouchouten, Karura, Garuda, and Bruiser had no concept of all that. All they had the concept of was the fact that this chasm was impossible to get across. Zouchouten thought about emitting some colorful language, but checked himself because after all, he was in the presence of a princess. Karura, however, had no such qualms, and yelled, "Oh fucking _HELL _no!"

Zouchouten stared down at her in surprise, his eyes wide and his jaw dropped, as she nearly screamed, "We're stuck on this side! We'll starve before we find a –"

"Wait! I think I remember seeing a sign for a village back there aways, maybe three hours ago. If we're lucky, they have supplies or even know the way to a different bridge," he said as hopefully as he could. "I mean, there _have _to be other bridges over Mahyah River, it's just a matter of seeing how far away they are."

"We have to go on strict rations," Karura firmly informed him as he turned the horse around. "And any berries we see, we eat some and pick more for later."

Bruiser vocalized a smug little neigh, because grass was everywhere, ha-ha! Granted he'd really wanted some oats at the inn, but he wasn't worried about food in the least. That was the nice things about being an herbivore: provided it was summer and you weren't in a desert or a land beset by drought, you had ample food all around you. He felt very sorry for Master and Pretty Filly, because if they could just eat grass, shrubs, and weeds too, they wouldn't be so upset and imperiled.

Our intrepid heroes rode along, faster this time, and Zouchouten couldn't help but think, _What else can go wrong on this quest? First Zalrissa, then having to leave most of the treasure, then the attraction to my charge, then the body odor, and now the bridge is kaput and we're running out of food. If I was a religious man, I'd be praying like hell right now._

.

It was two days later, and morale was low. No bridge had yet been found, though they'd journeyed all the way back down the mountain and to the right. On the plus side, they'd found a couple signs for the village of Harpistqueen, so they knew they were on the right track. However, Zouchouten had to think that maybe the village had been burned down or everyone had died from the plague, given his recent luck.

On they plodded, on and on and on, and Karura was saying enough prayers for the both of them. Heck, she was saying enough prayers for the _four _of them, since Bruiser and Garuda were animals and thus not theists either. For his part, Garuda wished they'd find the village soon, because he was getting worried about the humans. Bruiser too was fretting, and couldn't help but hope they'd stumble across some nice cooking fires with roasted pigs on stakes, free for the taking. Or at least a merchant or trader who could spare some bread and maybe dried meat, if they were lucky.

And then, like a kindly deity had heard their prayers (or an author who wanted to move the story along, whichever), they broke from the trees and saw a wondrous sight. There, over the burbling and rushing river, was a marvelous bridge, black and glittering. It was obsidian, carved by a sorcerer who was tired of having to go the long way around when he wanted to cross Mahyah River. He'd magically transported the bridge here two centuries ago, and so it remained today.

The little party of the knight, the princess, the phoenix, and the warhorse all reacted to this sight in various yet rather similar ways. Zouchouten pumped one fist in the air and yelled, "YES!" Karura grinned like a maniac and cried, "We're saved! The sign says Harpistqueen is mere miles away once we cross this!" Garuda screeched happily, which translated as, "You're not going to die!" And Bruiser excitedly whinnied, telling them in Horse, "Thanks to me, you're going to be okay!"

But then… a fly got into this glorious ointment, a large, ugly, downright disgusting fly. Not a literal fly, but a _troll_. He stood up from where he'd been lying down behind the bridge's side, and as they cantered onto it, he blocked their way quite easily, due to his girth and long arms. He was obese, he was dirty, and his hose were far too tight for a fat guy, ew. He was carrying a club, and while he looked pretty dumb, he also looked pretty dangerous.

"I am troll who own this bridge," he said haughtily, then sent Zouchouten a cocky grin and taunted, "U mad, bro?"

Zouchouten and Karura exchanged "What the hell is this?" glances, then Zouchouten snapped, "You don't own this bridge! You didn't build that. Get out of my way, or I'll be forced to –"

"I do own bridge! Possession nine-tenths of law," the troll smirked, ever so proud of his logic. "But see, if you answer riddle right, you go across, very simple. Simple as one, two, three. Easy as pie, child could figure this out. Not hard at all. At least, that part not hard."

Karura sent him a disgusted look and demanded, "And what's the riddle, then?"

"Riddle this: what made from fire, float above water, cut like knife and show you what you be?" the troll intoned, sounding ever so serious. "You get answer right, you cross. You get answer wrong, I squish. And you get answer wrong and run, I hurl club and bash brain out."

Zouchouten glowered and asked, "What if I decide to go find another bridge? Will you try to bash my brains out even if I don't try to answer?"

"No, but there no other bridge," the troll informed him with an ugly grin. "This only place you cross Mahyah River. That why I set up shop here. Location, location, location! To left, sheer drop-offs between mountains. To right, whirlpools and rapids, cannot ford. Now, I tell you riddle one more time, then you answer."

"How long do we have to think?" Karura asked, trying to find a loophole. If he said, "Take as long as you want," they could set up camp right here, wait until he fell asleep, and simply kill him with a well-placed sword stab. There was little chance Zouchouten could do it now, carrying her on his horse as well, and she'd heard that trolls were very hard to kill anyway.

True it was exceedingly underhanded, but the people who made those stupid rules weren't trying to cross this damn bridge, and running low on supplies. And actually, trickery was the stuff tales of geniuses were made of. If you couldn't win using the rules, twist them and you got stories told about you if it worked.

But alas…

"You have one minute," the troll replied, tapping his club against the ground. "What made from fire, float above water, cut like knife, and show you what you be?"

Silence as the two humans and the two animals tried to work it out. A sword? It was forged, and certainly cut, and reflected things if it were polished enough, but it sure as hell wouldn't float above water. Smoke? It floated above water and was made from fire, but it certainly didn't cut or show you what you were. What in the world could this mysterious thing be, and why oh _why _did the troll have to be tapping his club and making it hard to think?

"Karura," Zouchouten whispered into her ear, "I have no clue. What about you?"

"Um, the best I had was a sword," she admitted, frantically trying to think of something else. Oh, pressure was always the worst.

"Me too. Maybe… a sword thrown over water?" he tried, sounding hopeful. "It'll be in the air, so that takes care of the floating part. You know, I'm pretty sure that's it. A sword thrown over water!" he yelled, before she could insist that it had to be something else.

"WRONG!" the troll bellowed in reply, sounding exceptionally pleased with himself. "No one ever get it! Everyone say 'sword thrown over water'! Now I squish, hold still," he said seriously, taking a step forwards and hefting his club almost in a ceremonial manner.

Zouchouten yanked the reins and Bruiser started to back away, his hooves clicking on the bridge. And suddenly, like a burst of light in her brain, Karura knew the answer. She screamed, "The bridge! It's made of obsidian, which comes from a volcano, it's suspended over the river, cuts when flaked, and if polished smooth can reflect so well it can be used as a mirror. The bridge! Don't kill us!"

The troll now looked shocked, and petulantly whined, "No fair! No fair, lady! He already get it wrong, you no get second chance to answer! No fair!"

"But _she _didn't answer," Zouchouten protested, reaching for his sword. "That was me being dumb! So let _her_ go across," he said firmly, making her gasp.

"She go across, I squish you?" the troll asked skeptically.

"NO!" Karura frantically protested, feeling more horrified than she ever had before.

"_Yes_," Zouchouten said firmly, dismounting before she could stop him. "Karura, take Bruiser. You have enough supplies for one person to reach the village, and with my crest and horse they'll have to believe you when you say you're a princess and must be given an escort. I can't –"

"I am _not _going to run off and let you get killed!" she proclaimed, grabbing his cape from the saddle. "You… no! Get back on the horse, you stupid man, and we'll figure something out!"

"If my death will enable you to live," he told her quietly, his gaze locking with hers, "I have no regrets. I never thought I would meet someone like you, and I'm glad I was the one chosen to bring you back. So please, Karura, go across. Do it to honor my dying wish, if not for yourself."

Tears in her eyes, she was opening her mouth to say, "I could never live with myself if I abandoned you," when the troll roared, "No more sappy words! Lady, you go across _now _or you lose chance forever."

And before she could say or do anything else, Zouchouten smacked Bruiser's flank with the flat of his sword, making the stallion leap forwards, towards the troll. Karura yanked the reins but couldn't stop him as he trotted past the bridge's "owner," who was giggling, "Now I squish, human with stupid hair on face!"

She managed to turn the horse around just in time to see Zouchouten skip back to avoid the club, which thudded to the ground so hard it left a crater. He wasted no time in trying to stab the troll's chest, but unfortunately, the troll's other hand had come up to block, and all he ended up doing was stabbing his beefy forearm. As the troll roared in pain, Karura saw red. Nobody was going to kill Sir Zouchouten of Southland when she was around!

"Garuda! Go for his eyes!" she screamed, and the phoenix, who had been hissing and hopping on her shoulder in anger, took wing with a very happy screech. Oh good, finally he got to do something! He liked the big guy, and that troll had been getting on his last nerve. Prick.

Karura spurred Bruiser on as hard as she could, having remembered the spike on his forehead. With the warhorse's head down in a charge, that spike would be just at lower back level, and that would hurt. A lot.

As the troll swatted Zouchouten back a full six feet, Garuda made a grab for his eyes with his razor-sharp little phoenix claws, which actually weren't that little at all. The troll now tried to swat the bird, but no sooner had Garuda gotten out of his way than a sharp, piercing, _awful _pain right in his spinal cord made itself known. Bruiser and Karura had done their job well, and in fact, they'd caused paralysis from the waist down. And she still wasn't satisfied with a slow, lingering death in a land with no wheelchairs or onlookers to help, nuh-uh.

The troll toppled over, bellowing in agony, and Karura ran the horse right over him. The weight of a massive warhorse carrying not only a woman, but lots of heavy jewelry and gemstones, is bound to crack even a troll's skull, and that's just what it did. The troll emitted mewling noises of agony, and as his mind began to short-circuit, he had time to think, _Cheater._

Zouchouten shook his head to clear it, on his back on the grass, and the first thing he saw when his vision stopped doubling was Karura pulling Bruiser to a rearing stop, and dismounting so fast she tripped. No sooner had she flung herself down at the knight's side than he sat up and seized her in a hug, rasping, "You are, without a doubt, the bravest princess in the world."

She hugged him back with tears of relief in her eyes, then reluctantly drew back and asked him, "Are you all right?"

"I'll be just fine. Karura, I have half a mind to leave you in the village, just so I won't have to see you marry an idiotic tub of lard who'll never appreciate you for the find you are," he growled, his eyes flashing. "Say the word and I'll threaten the headman to take care of you."

"I _can't _marry Lord Blithering," she told him firmly, grabbing the sides of his face. "It would kill me, because I want to marry _you_."

And with that she kissed him. The troll breathed his last and expired, Garuda averted his eyes, Bruiser snorted and pawed the ground, and Zouchouten blinked, then kissed back. A flock of bluebirds started to sing a happy little song, but Garuda swooped over and killed one, then contentedly ate it while the humans smooched and the rest of the flock fled.

Karura decided that kissing was all it was cracked up to be, and more. Maybe if she'd done this with some inexperienced boy it wouldn't have been so nice, but this was an unforeseen perk of a mature man: he knew how to do things like this, very well in fact. Wow, the other young women at the Wibblesworth Estates hadn't mentioned _that _particular technique in their giggly gossip! Ooh, scandalous and improper it might be, but it certainly was thrilling.

Finally they drew apart, flushed and with elevated heart rates, and Zouchouten said, in an almost dazed tone, "That was definitely worth getting smacked around by a troll for. Damn, Karura, you've just made me the happiest man alive, maybe even in the history of the world. But I'm not sure how well your father's going to take it when you refuse to marry Blithering."

"We can find a priest, and have him marry us," she suggested matter-of-factly. "Every village needs a priest, right? That way, my father can't insist that I marry Lord Blithering, because I'll already be wed. What God hath joined, let no man sunder, and so on and so forth."

"Hmmm. Your father is a kind man," Zouchouten agreed, "so he won't have me killed for stealing you. But we can't have a wedding without rings, you know."

"We have rings," she patiently reminded him. "In the saddlebags, remember? Heck, I'm wearing thirty right now! I'll just pick my favorite, and we'll find one of the big ones for you, and that takes care of that problem quite nicely."

And then, something belatedly occurred to her. Marriage was not all romantic words, hugs, and kisses. Leaving aside that marriage was also compromise, working things out, arguments, and adjustments, marriage involved, well, _sex_. For someone who was suddenly realizing just how big Zouchouten's body was, and extrapolating certain characteristics from that, marriage suddenly seemed a bit daunting. Well, maybe they'd just… skip that part of marriage? Okay yeah, she'd certainly fantasized about it, but now that the possibility had become real, she knew very well that reality and fantasy were often at odds, usually in not such a good way.

"If you're worried about the consummation," he murmured, correctly interpreting her nervous look at his groin, "I can assure you I'll be very gentle, and make damn sure you'll enjoy it after the inevitable initial discomfort. Believe me, you'll enjoy it," he promised with a rather enthralling tone to his voice, and a look in his eyes that made her feel an awful lot better.

And really, if it didn't feel at least slightly good, why would other noble young ladies have been risking disgrace to do it with hunky servant boys and guards? Karura decided to trust her fiancé on this, because he'd been right on pretty much everything else so far. Well, minus the riddle, but apparently that had been a common mistake. The point was, she believed him when he said he'd make it good for her, and smiled back at him with a fervent, "All right then."

He smiled at her some more, then tucked a strand of hair behind one ear as he happily informed her, "Do you know, the moment you threw that rock at the dragon, I thought to myself, 'Boy, too bad she has to marry Blithering, she's really something.' And the more we interacted, the harder I fell for you."

In turn, she seriously told him, "I fell for you on the very second day of our journey, because you're so kind and brave and handsome. No, really!" she insisted, as he raised his eyebrows in slight disbelief. "You're so _manly_, and I prefer manly to pretty, and I honestly, truly, and very much want to see you out of your armor, because I must confess, muscular men are so very attractive."

Time for another long smooch, and as Garuda ate some more of the bluebird, he thought to himself in Phoenix, _I get the sense we won't make Harpistqueen today, because they're going to stay right here and not get up for a very long time. Oh well, making human chicks is an important thing to do._

But Garuda had forgotten that he was dealing with two smart, hungry, and road-weary people, who wanted to get to the village and be safe. And of course, the village would have actual beds instead of a bedroll and hard ground, not to mention baths (and the much-coveted fluffy towels). So for all the aforementioned reasons, Karura reluctantly broke the kiss and told her fiancé, "We should get going, so we can reach Harpistqueen."

"Indeed we should," he agreed as he got to his feet, and gently pulled her up. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we get married."

Bruiser placidly stood still as they mounted back up, and with a sharp whistle from Karura, Garuda abandoned the bluebird's remains and settled back onto her shoulder. With much enjoyment, Bruiser crossed the bridge, prancing along and stepping hard on the troll's body. Ha ha ha, that'd teach him to commandeer a bridge and try to squish innocent travelers.

Once on the other side of the river, Zouchouten heaved a huge sigh and relief and told Karura, "I can only hope everybody else who tries to cross the Tenkai Bridge makes it down here."

"Yes, indeed."

They rode along in what could only be called a sap-fest, truly. It was as if every butterfly within three miles felt the need to flutter around and occasionally land on their persons, happy songbirds flew and twittered everywhere, bunnies sat up on their hind legs, and the sun shone so brightly it was nearly criminal. Flower petals blew in the wind, annoying Garuda to no end, and any animal predation that occurred took place behind their backs. Streams burbled, hornets and flies stayed away, and the band of brigands hiding in the trees decided not to attack them, but probably only because of Bruiser's bloody spike and Zouchouten's bigass sword.

And those were just the surroundings! It was a good thing that Bruiser knew how to walk a road at a good pace, because Zouchouten was too busy grinning at Karura, making sweet nothings into her ear, listening to her sweet nothings in turn, and of course, frequently kissing her. She was turned almost fully around in the saddle, currently saying, "Oh yes, I wanted to join you in the river, yes I did indeed!"

Bruiser snorted to himself, wondering why they didn't just stop and find a convenient, hidden patch of grass already. He could pick up on human pheromones, and they were _pouring _from these people, it was almost sickening. When horses got excited they did something about it, often though their owners were trying to make them not do so, so why in the world weren't the humans doing the same thing? Crazy bipeds.

Two fluff-filled hours later, the happy humans, the harried horse, and the wanting-to-puke phoenix came across the best thing they'd seen on this journey: a hand-painted sign that said, "Welcome to Harpistqueen!" So far they were just seeing fields, but Bruiser downright galloped down the road until they reached the actual village. It was a decent size, clean for the Middle Ages, and full of living, non-plague-ridden people, who looked at them with great curiosity and whispered amongst themselves. Ooh, travelers! What could the villagers sell them?

"Hello," Zouchouten began, trying in vain to pick out the headman. "May I please speak to whoever's in charge here?"

"That would be me!" a cheerful voice called from the middle of the crowd, which parted to let a beautiful woman step forwards, grinning and even waving. She was shorter than Karura, with black hair so long it was nearly to the ground, some fancy hair jewelry, and a pretty blue dress trimmed with gold. Why was a woman in charge? Well, maybe she was the headman's wife and he was currently sick.

Before our intrepid adventurers could say anything, the leader circled them and clucked, "You, sir and madam, are in desperate need of some new clothes, and undoubtedly food, a bath, and a soft place to lay your heads. Worry not, because you can have all that here! My name's Kendappa, and this is the lovely and helpful little village of Harpistqueen, in case you missed all the signs. Some people do, you know."

"It is my great pleasure to meet you, Kendappa," Karura smiled, slipping into princess mode. "I am Princess Karura of Skycastle, and this is my fiancé, the courageous Sir Zouchouten of Southland."

"Ah, a princess and the brave knight who rescued her," Kendappa nearly intoned, then winked and added, "Oldest tale in the book, isn't it? Although you two seem to actually be happy with each other, which – you might not have actually known this – is not very common at all. Sometimes we get a rogue princess fleeing the pushy tool who rescued her, Kisshouten over there," she indicated a gorgeous forty-something woman, "is one of them."

Karura looked at Zouchouten as if to ask, "How much should we tell them? Is it necessary to rehash the whole thing?" He just sent her an "I'll handle this" look in return, and told Kendappa, "Well, it's a bit complicated, but you see, we're in desperate need of a priest to marry us. As soon as possible. Now, even."

Kendappa downright giggled, and chirruped, "Can't wait, can you pal? I mean, sir. Well just follow me, we'll have you two wedded and then _bedded _in a few short hours!"

"We have a _lovely _honeymoon cottage," Kisshouten called, coming over as more than one smitten male villager followed her with his eyes. "Nice clean sheets, well-stocked larder, a privy inside the house, a bathtub, and most importantly of all: a door you can lock. We _could _charge you for it, but unless Souma says to, we won't."

Karura figured that Souma was the priest, or the village headman. She nodded and followed Kendappa, Zouchouten trailing behind her as Bruiser went off to be curried by some helpful hostlers. Garuda bobbed his head in approval at all of this as they walked; it was _much _better than poor Karura having to marry a horrible, misogynistic fat man, and Zouchouten having to watch that with a stiff upper lip. The phoenix was pretty sure that Zouchouten would make a better king than Lord Blithering anyway, not least because he'd listen to his wife.

"You'll want baths before the wedding," Kendappa said seriously, opening the door to the cutest little cottage in existence. "I'll get you some new clothes, we always keep a number of those around in a number of sizes. You see, most of our business comes from travelers, and since we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere, it makes sense for us to be well-stocked. Of course, we do require payment up front, because we learned centuries ago that some people will take our goods and services then ride away without paying."

"Awful thieves," Karura said in disgust. "I don't suppose this lovely pearl ring here –" she took it off from her left index finger, "– would cover the new clothes?"

"More than," Kendappa smirked, taking the ring as Karura passed it over. "It's beautiful, and that's a _huge_ pearl. In fact, it'll cover the horse grooming too. Now, forgive me for prying, but do you always run around weighted down by jewelry?"

"No, I was trying to take as much of a dragon's treasure with me as I could," Karura said, before Zouchouten could signal her not to mention that, for fear of it being stolen. He needn't have worried; this village was big on personal responsibility and respect for others, although admittedly some of the villagers only feared reprisal from Kendappa and the mysterious Souma. And Kisshouten looking at them with disappointment, because nobody wanted to make Kisshouten feel bad (she was kind of their idol).

Kendappa slipped the ring onto her own finger, admired it for a few moments, then opened the door wider and said, "I'll send someone with the new clothes as soon as possible. Go ahead, one of you can take a bath and the other can answer the door. Once you're both all clean, come find me and I'll take you to Souma to be married. Do you mind if Kisshouten and I play the witnesses?"

"That's more than fine," Karura said as politely as she could, when all she wanted to do was jump into the bath. "We thank you again for your generosity."

With a wink and a wave Kendappa was gone, and Karura, Garuda, and Zouchouten entered the cottage, Zouchouten ducking his head to avoid hitting the cute doorframe and the cute ceiling. Whoops, that was the problem with adorable little cottages like this: they were designed for shorter people. Great. Oh well, he'd be lying down for the majority of their time here, oh yes he would.

.

Two baths, much resisting of joining each other in the bath, some clean clothes, and a snack later, Zouchouten and Karura hunted Kendappa down. It wasn't difficult at all, seeing as she'd been sitting on the bench in the garden, staring at the door with an eager expression on her face. Apparently they were quite entertaining, or something.

"All clean?" she asked with an incorrigible grin. "C'mon, let's get to the fun stuff." And with that, she got up and walked off at a brisk pace, saying over her shoulder, "I've taken the liberty of telling the village we're having a feast, because everybody likes celebrations and we haven't had one for a while."

The other two weren't going to turn a feast down, nosirree. A feast would entail lots of different meats, lots of different vegetables, lots of different breads, cheeses, and fruits, and desserts too. Not to mention alcohol, don't forget that. Ale! Wine! And hopefully they'd be having some minstrels or something too, or at least the entertainment of drunk people trying to sing. Yes, a feast would be very nice indeed, and Karura couldn't help but hope that there would be some eel pie for Garuda, because he loved those things.

As they walked, Karura noticed something odd: she saw no spire of a church, not even a tiny one. What the heck? Every village needed a church, or they'd all be going to Hell because they hadn't been baptized, surely. Well, maybe it had recently burned down or something.

Kendappa led them to a nondescript small building with flowering vines on the walls and a cat lying on the roof, and said pleasantly, "We'll actually have the wedding on the green, we just have to get Souma. They're here!" she called, opening the door.

Souma stepped out, and Karura's and Zouchouten's jaws dropped. This was no kindly village priest in a cassock with a rosary hanging from his belt. This wasn't even a man! Souma was a lovely woman, taller than Kendappa and with exotic dark skin, plus dancing green eyes. She was clad in a long black robe, wore a diadem with what looked like an emerald, and was also carrying a fine dagger. Karura wondered if this were all some sort of elaborate hoax, and she and Zouchouten wouldn't be able to get married after all.

She forced a smile and asked politely, "I thought we'd be married by a _priest?_"

"We're a pagan village!" was Kendappa's happy answer. "We reject your patriarchal monotheism, and cling to our millennia-old, Mother Goddess-centric pantheon. Now, a marriage performed by Souma is still legal in the sight of society, as per the law of the land of Gandaraja. And if you're worried about the law of the land of Skycastle, you don't ever have to tell anyone that a priestess did it instead of a priest."

"Works for me," Zouchouten cheerfully proclaimed, as Karura decided that God would rather have them married by a priestess than sleeping together out of wedlock. She nodded her head and agreed, "Yes, this is fine. Although we will be using the priest lie, because some people would view a marriage as null and void if performed by a woman. You know how certain people are," she sighed in resignation, picturing her father turning purple and screaming.

Souma shook both of their hands, and informed them, "The ceremony will be much shorter than a Christian ceremony. Basically, you hand me the rings, I proclaim what we're here for, you say your vows, you exchange the rings, I pronounce you man and wife, you seal it with a kiss, and voilà, you're lawfully wed. Then we have the celebration, and after that, you get to go back to the cottage and have the fun of consummation. And we promise not to press our ears against the door," she said firmly, giving Kendappa a look.

"I did that _once_," Kendappa said huffily. "I was just curious what two men would say, and let me tell you, Sir Kujaku says things to turn your ears blue."

"And I'm sure Sir Yasha appreciates them," Zouchouten muttered under his breath, secretly pleased that his two pals had escaped a court where they would've been imprisoned if anybody had heard that. Oh yeah, it happened a lot, but nobody came out and _talked_ about it.

With the assurance that Kendappa would not play audio voyeur, Karura and the rest made their way to the green, where Kisshouten was waiting, seated on a bench with flowers all around. Damn, she was obviously one of those women who attracted pretty things, because there were some butterflies on her hair like living jewelry, and a baby rabbit was snuggled up by her foot. Karura immediately grabbed Garuda's beak as she felt him shift his weight to go after it, and hissed so only he could hear, "If you kill that bunny, I'm going to pluck your tailfeathers. Sit still and behave."

"Isn't this a lovely day for a wedding?" Kisshouten smiled as she stood up, and the rabbit bounded away. "It's early evening so the sun's not too hot, but it's nice and warm without a cloud in the sky."

All of this was true, and as Karura handed over the chosen rings to Souma (the rest had been left back in the cottage), she couldn't help but feel that the universe was telling her she was _meant _to be with Zouchouten. Actually, the beautiful weather was completely due to myriad factors like wind, moisture in the air, and such, but oh well, it still worked. Still, it was an amusing fact that on the day she would've had to marry Lord Blithering, the weather would be abysmal, pouring rain and even spawning a tornado in the fields, back in Skycastle.

"All present and accounted for?" Souma began with a smile of her own. "Bride, bridegroom, and witnesses?"

At the chorus of "Yes," she grinned and began, "We are gathered here today for a special ceremony, the union of Princess Karura of Skycastle and Sir Zouchouten of Southland. Marriage is the most important act of love, and here before me, these two souls will join before the powers of Heaven. Now, unfortunately you'll have to have a separate ceremony back home to crown him as a prince," she said seriously, "but your marriage will stand in the sight of this world and the next.

"Sir Zouchouten," she turned to him, "will you give yourself to Princess Karura, to love, honor, and protect her, through the good times and the bad, to father her children and cling to her until death do you part, to forsake all others and to proclaim to the world that she is your wife?"

_Hell yes! _Zouchouten thought, but he grinned at Karura and intoned, "I will."

"And Princess Karura," Souma directed her words to the lady now, "will you give yourself to Sir Zouchouten, to love, honor, and protect him, through the good times and the bad, to bear his children and cling to him until death do you part, to forsake all others and to proclaim to the world that he is your husband?"

_You bet your life I will, _Karura said in her mind, then grinned back at him and nearly sang, "I will."

"Wonderful, simply wonderful," Souma chirped, then handed Karura's ring to her man and instructed, "Repeat after me as you put the ring on her finger: 'With this ring, I thee wed, until the end of days.' "

He parroted that with great enthusiasm, and slipped the massive diamond ring onto Karura's ring finger, quite pleased that she'd chosen this one because it was so beautiful. Not to mention, if she were ever attacked, a punch from a fist with that rock would gouge the attacker's face, yay. Not that such a thing was likely to happen, but he felt better knowing that she had a little extra protection in the form of bling.

Karura mimicked his actions and speech, and as they beamed at each other like idiots, Souma happily proclaimed, "By the power vested in me by the Goddess of All, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

And so he did as she kissed him back, and this was, without a doubt, the fastest royal wedding in the history of Skycastle. Usually there would be a big banquet the night before, a lot of pomp and ceremony the morning of, a procession from the palace to the cathedral, a long service involving a homily and communion, a procession back to the palace, and three days of celebration. Yeah, this was actually much, much better, Karura thought as she threw her arms around Zouchouten. And this way, she wouldn't have to deal with nosy chambermaids trying to spy on the wedding night, she knew how some chambermaids worked.

As Karura and her newly minted husband kept up the liplock, Kisshouten, Souma, and Kendappa clapped gleefully and Garuda emitted a joyful shriek of "KREEEEE!" Which, in Phoenix, meant, "Congratulations, newlyweds! Now let's party!"

"Zouchouten," Karura breathed as they finally parted, "I _love _you, like I've never loved anyone before."

"I love you too, in an equally passionate way."

"I love you more."

"Not possible, darling."

"No no, I really do –"

"Gaaak," Garuda choked, making Karura whip her head around to glare at him, because that one meant, "I'm going to hurl at this mushy stuff." The bird just sent her a look that said, "Well, I _will_," so she rolled her eyes and decided that she was going to find a way to get back at him later, for ruining such a perfect moment. Kendappa just snickered, and stepped up to Souma with a huge smile on her face.

"That was a great ceremony, precious," she cooed, then kissed Souma full on the mouth.

As the priestess happily reciprocated such an action, Zouchouten's and Karura's eyebrows rose in surprise. Whoa, okay, you knew it happened, but it was so demonized back in Skycastle, much more than men and lithe young servant boys. Karura made the mental note to ask Kisshouten about her thoughts on lesbianism, and if it seemed harmless, maybe the princess would introduce acceptance back home. Kendappa and Souma seemed so _normal_, and neither had eyed Karura like half the male population would've if given the chance.

And halfway through the feast (which was delicious, but of course), Karura had determined that lesbianism was actually pretty harmless, nor were Souma and Kendappa some sort of women-men. They were fully female, interested in pretty clothing and nice hair like the vast majority of heterosexual ladies, and the only difference was they just weren't attracted to men, and instead loved women. Kisshouten assured Karura, "Oh yes, it's love," so Karura decided that when she was queen, one of the first things she was going to do was have Zouchouten proclaim equal rights for same-sex couples. Screw the priests and their loud protestations, because half of them had a thing for young boys anyway.

Once the feast finally wound down, Mr. and Mrs. of Southland excused themselves, to smiles and nods. And then, the moment they were out of earshot, the villagers broke into adult jokes, graphic gestures, and even dirty limericks and ditties. Yup, what can you expect from a bunch of medieval commoners? Heck, some people make similar jokes at modern wedding receptions when they think nobody can hear, or they just get smashed. Thankfully, Karura was blithely unaware of this, although Zouchouten knew very well what the partygoers were discussing as he carried his wife across the threshold, barely remembering to duck his head in time.

"Now," he said firmly as he laid her on the bed, "I'm sure you've heard all sorts of horror stories, but I want to dispel the myths about –"

"Actually, I didn't believe most of the horror stories," she flatly replied, even as he began unlacing her bodice. "But perhaps that was because I found the old diary of a very honest woman hidden beneath the floorboards of my room back at the Wibblesworth Estates. She described it in plain speech, with no embellishment that I could see, and while I know there's going to be some pain and you're undoubtedly quite big, I'm dead certain it won't be so bad after a while."

That was that, and Garuda, out in the living room of the little cottage, snagged a spider as the noises got louder and louder. Ah yes, humans liked to be vocal when they mated, didn't they? He still thought it was odd that Zouchouten hadn't puffed up his chest and done a mating dance to impress Karura, but hey, the poor guy didn't have sexy feathers like Garuda did. The phoenix hopped to the window, pushed it open with his beak, and flew off to find Bruiser.

Bruiser was waiting for him with an eager expression on his horsey face, and nearly demanded, "Neeeigh?" _Are they breeding yet?_

"Shrikeech," Garuda smugly replied, which signified, _Yes, and they're having lots of fun._

Bruiser nodded his head in contentment, then went back to grazing. How wonderful, Master and Pretty Filly had gotten what they both had so badly wanted. It had taken a kidnapping by a dragon, a bad betrothal, a psycho sorceress, killing a dragon twice, a long ride home, a broken bridge, lots of hunger, a troll with a hard riddle, a brave almost-sacrifice so Karura might live, and a charge any warrior would be proud of, but the princess and the knight in shining armor had fallen in love and gotten hitched.

And even though there were occasional arguments and other troubles, they did indeed live happily ever after.

**End**

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(AN: Hmm, the idea of a noble sending a big guy to bring a dragon-guarded princess back to marry a different man smacks of "Shrek." Oh well. At least there were no talking donkeys, right?

Ha, Yasha ran off with Kujaku… I ship it, oh yes I do. And you learned a bit about obsidian! I'm into geology, so it was fun to use some of what I know for the riddle. It's a natural glass, formed by slow-moving lava. By the by, when flaked, obsidian cuts better than steel and is still used in some surgical tools today. Cool, huh?

I liked writing Bruiser. He's supposed to be the horse you briefly see Zouchouten on, in that panel of the Four Gods when Kendappa's talking to Karura about how she'll have to go through them to get revenge for Karyou. I gave him an actual personality here, though. He's a good boy, huh?

So… reviews. "R" is for the rabid hunger of an author who would like them, "E" is for the emptiness in my soul if I don't get them, "V" is for the vicious responses that you will _not _get when you tell me what I did wrong, "I" is for the improvement my writing will undergo if you tell me what you thought, the second "E" is for the energy that tends to get stories finished faster when I know someone paid attention to prior ones, "W" is for the way I'm pleading with you not to be lurkers, and "S" is for the simple idea that I want anything, anything at all, be it negative or positive feedback. Thank you in advance, and just so you know, I never hide unflattering reviews like some egocentric people do, so don't worry that your feedback will be for naught.

Also, the next installment of this fic will bring it up to an M rating. So when you look for this and don't immediately see it, it hasn't been taken down, it's just gotten sexy. However, I do want to finish AUs involving other characters before that, so it'll be a little while. Next up is Yasha/Kujaku, yay!)


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